Episode 13 – Age Play in the Popular Media

Our friend Ella, who was featured on the TV program The Secret Lives of Women, joins us again. We talk about some recent coverage and depictions on age play on TV, the radio, and even in the news. Ella gives us a deeper look at how her show segment was made and we share some recommendations for folks who find themselves in the eye of the media.

National Geographic Taboo – This segment about adult babies features Stanley from California and his auntie, Sandra. We found it to be rather negative, for many reasons. Thanks to the very awesome Rilo Kilo for hosting this clip on her blog.

It Gets Better – Dan Savage’s amazingly great project shows recorded video messages of support to struggling LGBT youth. It’s a response to teen suicides caused by intolerance, showing that life for alternative folks does get better.

9 Responses to "Episode 13 – Age Play in the Popular Media"

Wow. Heavy stuff. Thanks for saying Stanley and Sandra had their hearts in the right place. I actually know him from another site, and he’s more of a cool and enlightened person than a lot of people might think.
I think some site-owners have a real idealistic vision of their .com, or what-have-you, becoming this warm and welcoming haven for babies “of all ages.” What they don’t realize is, while they themselves aren’t out to get anyone, that kind of environment is like flypaper to those who do have less-than-admirable intentions. And then a lot of people jump to the conclusion that the site-owner is a pedo, when all they’re guilty of is having really, really poor judgment.
Re: Crib Your Enthusiasm. You can choose to be all offended and pissed off, or you can choose to see it for the non-educational, sensationalist spoof-fest it clearly was and laugh your ass off. I chose the latter. Don’t worry, I saw nothing funny about the Frolicon incident. That was absolutely not cool, and I’m real sorry it happened.

(That episode is from when Springer was still trying to make a semi-respectable show; it wasn’t until later that he went to the completely trashy place. That said, the episode is fairly negative in several ways, but I do think Stephanie did a wonderful job.)

In response to something you said… I really do think there’s such a thing as bad press. I was downright traumatized as an 11-year-old by happening across a TV show that convinced me that people with this interest are insane and that I’d be institutionalized or shunned if anyone ever found out about me. Prior to that, I hadn’t really had major shame issues surrounding my kink, but afterward… I was so far gone I actually started making detailed plans and preparations for suicide in the event of someone discovering my secret. Too me years to even start getting over it, and there are still ripples from it. That was bad press.

I don’t know if a TV show could do that kind of damage to a kid nowadays (let us all praise the glory of google). And it was really an unusually bad piece… usually, “bad” media coverage of us is just kind of embarrassing, making us out to be weird and/or funny (and, actually, we kind of are weird and funny, so it’s hard to blame them). But when a media depiction of us makes us out to be broken and sick…. I have a hard time seeing any good in that. The “ways to die” show is another one I just have nothing good to say about.

Luckily there haven’t been too many of those. I’m really very grateful to all the people like Ella who’ve braved the lion’s den and done media appearances to help put a human face on our kink.

I had an interest in Ageplay for a long time but the only thing I saw in the media were Adult Babies. While that may help people who are into being babies or diapered, I’m not one of them and prefer to be an older kid (8 years normally). So it wasn’t until I joined a chat room about ageplay on Bondage.com (thanks to Mr. Cuddle Bear who runs that and some other helpful pages) that I realized I don’t have to be a baby to ageplay nor am I alone.

having said that I love that you all adressed anger towards the media and how anger is like a dandelion.
something to add to that, as an herbalist, if you mow the dandelion down it makes more “weeds” but if you view the anger as something that can help you and make you grow…you dig it up and make the roots and leaves and heads into healing medicine that you can share (which I actually do lol).